Employees FAQ 29

Are police and fire chiefs and other public safety supervisors
exempt from the requirement that non-represented municipal employees pay
the employee’s contribution to the Wisconsin Retirement System?

It
depends on whether the rank and file public safety employees are
unionized and if so whether the collective bargaining agreement has the
employer picking up the employee’s contribution to WRS. If the answer
is yes to both questions, then the public safety managers are treated
the same. Under 2011 Wisconsin Act 32 non-represented police and fire
department managers are aligned with represented public safety employees
for purposes of WRS contributions. State law allows represented public
safety employees to continue to bargain over most matters relating to
wages, hours, and conditions of employment, including whether, and to
what extent, the employer “picks-up” the employee share of the WRS
contribution. Under Act 32, non-represented law enforcement and
firefighting managerial employees employed by a municipality are treated
the same as represented public safety employees employed by that
municipality for purposes of paying the employee required WRS
contribution. If the municipal employer picks up the represented police
and fire employees’ WRS contribution, then the municipality must also
pick up the non-represented police and fire managers’ WRS contribution.

If
a community’s police department is not unionized, then the rank and
file members of the department and the police chief and other managers
are required to pay the employee’s contribution to WRS and the
municipality is prohibited from paying the contribution on behalf of the
employee.